Worker

Employer

Anonymised Parties

Public Health Care Worker

Public Health Care Provider

Representatives

  Self

HR Corporate Employment Relations

Act

Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

IR - SC - 00001637

05/08/2023

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

IR - SC - 00001638

05/08/2023

The worker submitted employment rights cases and two industrial relations disputes on 05.08.23. She  gave two weeks’ notice of her resignation on 18.08. 23 and has since left the employment. The disputes are concerned with a variety of difficulties prior to her resignation and whilst in the employment in a CHO area and the manner in which the employer dealt with her grievance/s in particular the delays and the appointment of a person to whom she had objected. The worker was a vaccinator under the Covid public health scheme from 2021 to 2023, initially attached to an acute hospital group. Her dispute is with the management of the CHO area and not the hospital group where there was a HR person on site if difficulties arose.

The worker described a number of issues of difficulty she experienced during her employment in 2022 and 2023. Correspondence shows that she found additional issues were occurring even as the grievance procedure was in train in the summer of 2023. Emails where she provided details of her issues and responses from managers as well as those relating to the grievance process were all provided for the hearing.  The date for lodging an official grievance was given by the worker as 15 June 2023. On 5 August 2023,the worker referred the dispute to the WRC owing to delays in dealing with issues she raised. She described a series of emails received over the summer of 2023 as hostile. Her situation had dragged on over a period of 1.5 years. She had concerns about the person or persons who would hear her grievance and sought an independent person. In June she had raised her concerns about a hearing  in an email on 9 June and sought the intervention of the national HR office at that stage. There was a meeting regarding her issues on 7 July. By July 21st she had not received a copy of the minutes. On July 21st she set out the detail of her remaining grievances .  She was to attend a meeting where her grievance would be heard by a MH -who she had previously described in an email as having a history of strong connection to a particular trade union, as has another person MHK-adding that they both reside in the same area as the  CHO DON. On 1 August she was advised of a meeting to take place with MH on August 3rd. This was later changed to August 21st. In an email of 4 August ,the worker said that as the 21st was a working day, she would make herself available on August 24th or 25th. In that reply, she also noted that her concern of a conflict of interest within the chosen intermediary had been ignored. The dispute was then referred to the WRC due to the delays and the procedures adopted.

In their submission, the employer replied to the individual points of grievance detailed by the worker. Each point was rejected.

Regarding the procedures adopted by the employer in response to the written grievance  as recorded in sequence:

15 June -the worker submitted a grievance in writing. Under advice from HR, the stage was referred up to the GM based on the contents which were included items relating to the immediate line manager who could not therefore hear the grievance.

29 June GM invited the worker to an informal meeting. There was a lengthy meeting to consider the workers eleven-page grievance document.

7 July Meeting between the worker and the GM. There was an agreed approach as to which items would be handled informally and which would be referred for a formal grievance process under an independent manager.

17 July, GM wrote to the worker re formal and informal processes.

21 July-worker replied that she understood that she was already in the formal process-referring to obstruction. This is incorrect as recorded by the GM in an email prior to their meeting on July 7th.

31.08 =- email notice of grievance hearing to take place on 03.08.23

01.08 -worker emailed that she would not be available for a meeting with a hearer of the formal grievance on the 3rd-too short notice. 21 August offered as an alternative date-with name of hearer.

04.08-worker emailed that she was unavailable on 21st-as she was working that day. Reply that as that was a working day, she would be paid(for attending the meeting)

05.08 -worker replied that she had already stated that she would be working on 21st – (describing the email received on 04.08 as explicitly hostile)

18.08-email to worker offering 24th -reply that the matter had now gone external

23.08 -email from worker that the matter had now gone external and that she had resigned

23/24.08 Employer sought clarification as to whether the grievance was to proceed. No response and no further contact from the worker re the grievance.

It is well established practice in the WRC and the Labour Court that any worker is required to exhaust the available internal procedures, whether grievance or disciplinary before referring a dispute for a recommendation under the Industrial Relations Act 1969. There is no reason to depart from that principle in this case. Whether or not some of the issues in the grievance first occurred in 2022, the grievance was first submitted in June 2023. Thereafter while certain notices of meetings  were quite short and the external hearer was not named in the  notice of the meeting scheduled for August 4th, in the main any process issues were caused by the worker disputing the nature of the proceedings whether  forma or informal, not co—operating with an approach agreed on 7 July,  seeking to undermine local management at senior level in appealing to national HR, refusing to accept a hearing date when she would be paid for attending a meeting  and generally criticising every aspect of the employers approach to her grievance including highly personalised commentary in respect of named managers and her derogatory response to the email simply informing her that she would be paid for August 21st as a working day. In this employment as a whole, there are many instances at the WRC where the employer is criticised and compensation awarded for a failure to either follow their own procedures, not doing so fairly where they do adhere to the steps of the procedure or lengthy delays in doing so. In this instance the management from HR to the General Manager of the service have provided no legitimate cause for criticism by the worker regarding the handling of her grievance from June 2023 onwards. Referring to managers in derogatory terms by reference to their association with a particular trade union or where they reside does not provide objective reasons for not co-operating with those staff (who are also employees) as hearers of a grievance. On this point it is noted that, on August 4th, 2023, in her reply regarding the grievance hearer, the worker made some negative remarks about the appointment but then went on to stipulate the building where she wished the meeting to take place-which is not an indication of a refusal to co-operate with that person. At that point, HR had no reason to conclude other than that the worker would participate in the hearing of the  grievance by the appointed person. Instead, the worker referred this dispute to the WRC the following day without any further indication of her position. The conduct of the worker in this matter does not provide any basis for a favourable recommendation for redress-which she sought at the hearing.

In delivering an opinion on this dispute, I have not taken any account of the employer response to the individual items of complaint in the grievance and/or the complaint form any more than I have considered the competing claims by the worker. The formal grievance was not heard and it is not my role to substitute myself for any grievance hearer. I have made a recommendation regarding the holding of documents related to this dispute on file consistent with the recommendation to the parties to close the matter.

Grievance procedures.